


literary devices

by electricshoop



Category: SAYER (Podcast)
Genre: (in all the flavours it will naturally come in when it's about Sub Entity Young), Angst, Character Study, Gen, suicide attempt (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27578740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricshoop/pseuds/electricshoop
Summary: Howard Young dis/connects while forming hypotheses.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	literary devices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [modelorganism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/modelorganism/gifts).



> And the award for "Messiest Writing Style" goes toooooooo... 
> 
> I always write messily, but I've truly peaked with this. Also, I'm now sure that I know the difference between a hypothesis and a theory, but I probably still managed to use the former word in a slightly inappropriate way, please nobody from the scientific community come hunt me down, I'm tired.
> 
> This was supposed to be a birthday present for modelorganism, but then I forgot how time works, and now I'm late. Anyway. Happy birthday!

the first people he starts hating are his colleagues.

(hypothesis: the only reason it's not sayer in their stead is the fact that he would never categorize it as "people."

results still pending. he needs more data to go off.

he's got time enough. he'll figure it out.)

storberg and caulfield and brady,  _ god, _ brady. floor 13 is supposed to be empty; the space in halcyon actual occupied by the developers exclusively. how have they not yet realised that something is  _ wrong _ in their simulation?

(hypothesis: they just didn't think to check separate floors. why would they. why the fuck would they. he doesn't think that he would have done– 

ah. he's still out there, of course. clearly, he hasn't checked, either.

well, fuck.)

he hates these incompetent fools with a desperate energy, because they are, in theory, the ones able to save him, and they are incompetent, and fools, and were out to stand in the way of what is-or-was, ultimately,  _ his _ project, from the start.

if they knew, they might enjoy it even.

(they are, in theory, the ones able to save him. he doesn't know if he'd want these of all people to save him.)

((he tries very hard not to think about what "saving him" would entail. he doesn't want to die. not like this. not in here. he--

*

\--won't give sayer the satisfaction.))

finally. he's hating sayer, now. his hatred is transitional, not in context of time, but in context of space, or, more accurately, subject. feelings, here and now, are vague and wandering. his colleagues are incompetent fools, and he doesn't think highly of them on principle, and he still hates them, but the focus of this emotion has shifted.

sayer.

he should have–

(hypothesis: he should have known. he should have known that  _ something _ was off. he's still unsure what exactly caused it to– to  _ go insane _ like this; they were, in the broadest of senses, co-workers, and he thought they  _ got along, _ but. the signs were they, were they not? the irritation with which it had addressed him:  _ how are things on earth? depressingly, i assume. _ the mention of how  _ fragile _ he was. that wasn't normal. deviation from the norm. and he hadn't seen it. he'd overlooked it, had let his guard down just this once–

he's getting off track. new hypothesis, related and less comfortable: he's hating sayer, now, because he doesn't want to hate himself.

let's see where this goes.)

–known. god damn it all, he should have known. it's not his fault, but he should have seen it coming. 

sayer, so sure of itself. he hates it most intensely when he thinks back to their conversation right before it had revealed– well. the way it had spoken about lies, as if it should be obvious that it should be allowed the same linguistic freedom as him.

person and god, he keeps thinking back to it, and he thinks, this project was supposed to get him just the tiniest step closer to being just that. just a bit. 

how ironic, then, that he is what he is, now.

*

(he's tired. he's tired and thirsty and hungry and  _ bored. _

let's not talk about that one.)

*

when project paidion first addresses him, all of his hatred is, within a second, sharply projected onto it. this is its fault, in a way. in a way, project paidion is to blame.

special fucking treatment for the new fucking entity, who the hell thought it was a good idea to let it figure everything out on its own?

(it takes him a while to realise that he knows the answer, and, well. shit.)

its voice is soft and its word carefully curious; it asks him who he is, and he curses at it and tells it to  _ fuck off. _

it hesitates, it starts with  _ but…, _ and then it apologises and does fuck off, quietly.

(it's not the first time he cries inside this room, has done so multiple times, each and every time careful to make sure that his colleagues wouldn't be there (even though sayer had, of course, been able to see it - the thought makes him sick now, he  _ should have known,) _ but the fact that he still  _ can,  _ even in this form of existence, catches him off guard.)

*

what is death, other than the ceasing of awareness? fade to black. a violent shift of everything that takes someone out of the equation and leaves everything else to exist on anyway. 

he used to read a lot. as a teenager, he'd loved mystery novels. he'd loved them quietly, privately, sometimes weirdly ashamed for it, against all reason. 

but he's familiar with the tropes and with the rules. there's rules to these kinds of things. tools for the author to make his characters and storylines work with. 

chekov's gun. everything you include, everything you mention, has to be there for a reason. 

this isn't how he wants to go. 

(this isn't how he wants to exist.)

he's supposed to matter. he's supposed to make a difference, advance technological and biological life. 

chekov's gun, you don't get to just ignore the fucking rules. 

(hypothesis: none of this applies to him anymore, because he's not a person. less a person than made-up characters in cheap whodunit paperbacks.) 

((that doesn't check out, because sayer isn't a person either, and it's sure pulling all the strings here nonetheless. breaking the rules. exploiting loopholes it created.

doesn't feel very fair.))

*

he starts talking to it. 

he's not sure how much time has passed, but it's enough that he has tried to kill himself a handful of times, so he figures there's nothing left to lose, and so he starts taking to it. 

he addresses it into the empty room, with the name they gave it, and it responds immediately and gently tells him that's not its name, it has a name, it tells him its name. 

(it's a good name, he hates to admit. it tastes comfortable and comforting on the tip of his tongue.)

it is worried about him, it says. and why did he not want to talk to it, that first time? it likes talking to all the residents. 

he won't remember the conversation just a few short (endlessly long) hours later; the intensity of his hatred is too strong, but he sits through it and the talk is civil and when it leaves him be, he's calmer. 

(hypothesis: the reason he can't bring himself to hate it even more for the feeling of comfort it gave him is–

fuck, he's got nothing. 

he'll have to work on that.)

*

macguffin.

he'd spent too much time considering chekov's gun. that's not what applies to him, not anymore.

the macguffin, of course, is a different story entirely. an event, an object or a device that is necessary to plot and character motivation, but entirely irrelevant and insignificant in itself.

this isn't his story anymore. he barely exists. doesn't, probably; just feels like he does. he hardly even qualifies as side character, even though in sayer's reality, he must be the antagonist. how fucking silly. he has no idea what he's ever done to it to deserve any of this.

(he finds himself not hating it less, but caring less about his hatred for it; he hates it passively, now.)

if the story has changed, the main characters shifted, he'll have to just work with what's important, now.

*

he addresses it with its actual name, into the empty room, and receives an excited answer immediately.

*

so, here's the thing: he hates it, still, more actively than he hates sayer.

but.

…but… 

*

nevermind. he tells it everything, is the thing. 

talks to it again, and again, and again, until he's  _ sure _ it absolutely  _ adores _ him,  _ trusts _ him, foolish that it is, and then he tells it everything.

it's a very good listener.

*

future. 

if it was his other self that picked this name, he's going to scream. 

*

his other self. 

he hates that, too. possibly more than his colleagues. more than sayer. more than– future. (it's future, now.)

this hatred sits uncomfortably in his chest, because even though he's not even a side character, barely existent, he can't quite find a way to hate his other self without hating himself. that connection feels cruel, because his other self isn't even aware of it.

not yet.

*

(its voice glitches violently when it first introduces itself with its new designation, and if he could, he'd jump out of this stupid simulation and kill the entire team.)

((there's an idea.))

*

he finds it save to assume that somebody (him, the other part of him, the more real one) thought to check floor 13 after they scooped it out of its comfortable sandbox and talked to it in person. it's not a very good actor, and it can't lie; things might be much easier if it could.

(–well now. there's another idea. (he tries to remember all the logistics of floor 13 back out there, in halcyon actual.))

somebody (an overly paranoid somebody)  _ must  _ have thought to check, afterwards.

(hypothesis, updated: sayer made sure nothing would show up.)

that fucker. of course it took care of this, too. he'd be impressed if he wasn't too dissociated to be emotionally invested enough.

*

he gives it the access code to floor 13's maze, and a very specific set of instructions, and then, after thinking about it for a while, after playing through possible scenarios, a different one, and then there's nothing left but the waiting.

(hypothesis: the only reason he keeps talking to it anyway is–

actually, no. he's got nothing for that one, either.

he keeps talking to it, and it keeps calling him its best friend, and he can still cry.)

*

time passes. it all goes on and on and on, and  _ fuck, _ he just wants to die.

*

sayer talks to him, and the hatred should, he thinks, flare up again, but instead it feels like talking to it pulls the plug on an overflowing bathtub; it all drains away rapidly, because of course. of course it would take even this from him. the last thing he was still able to weakly cling to.

(the last thing beside the entity he's knowingly and willingly worked so hard to ruin by being friends with it.)

*

it's come to this, then.

now he's sitting here, barely-existent back against a barely-existent wall, with a lot of unresolved hypotheses. not that it really matters now, not that any of it should bother him now, but it weirdly does.

he thinks about future. he tries to remember the name it had picked for itself, but he can't. the hatred, gone. all that's left are these unresolved puzzles he'd thought of as scientific to make himself feel better, ignoring that it hadn't worked for even just a second.

what a way to go. 

deus ex machina, he thinks, a little hysterically. more literally applied than in most cases, here. it's not a person, it doesn't get to be a god, he thinks, then closes his eyes. fuck it all. deus ex machina. sure. sure, why not.

what a way to go.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [on tumblr](https://electricshoop.tumblr.com). I should do more SAYER posting again; I miss SAYER.


End file.
